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Problems of TurkestanZeki Velidi Togan

To cite this Article Togan, Zeki Velidi(1990) 'Problems of Turkestan', Central Asian Survey, 9: 2, 95 — 101

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Central Asian Survey, Vol. 9, No. 2, pp. 9 5 - 101 , 1990 0263 -4937/90 $3.00 + .00

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Problems of Turkestan

ZEKI VELIDI TOGAN

Of the two parts of Turkestan — western and eastern, which areunder the rule of Russia and China — this article will examine onlythe former. W estern Turkestan is composed of the five regions of theformer Turkestan Governorship: Bukhara, Khiva and the former"steppe regions" (which are now Kazakhstan). It is an area of3,700,000 km2 and has a population of 13,000,000. By a quirk of fate,this rich land, the cradle of an ancient civilisation, came under theRussian yoke, and this fact by itself is interesting and merits closeranalysis.

Turkestan was, at one time, a very important mediaeval tradingcen tre. However, the triumph of the sea trade rou tes , discovered byEuropeans, over the Central Asian land routes, was already felt inthe 16th century. Even the victory of Shah Tamin over the KhorassanUzbek khans at Hosrujejam in 1528 — described by Sultan Babur asthe victory of cannons over arrows and witchcraft — was in fact avictory for the Portuguese, who were supplying the Safavid army withEuropean weapons. The appearance of well-equipped armies ofEuropean trading companies — be it from the south, India (EastIndia Company agents), or from the north, Arkhangelsk and Siberia(Stoganoffs and others) — also paralysed the economic stability ofTurkestan in the 16th century. The natural economic links betweendifferent parts of the region were gradually disappearing: trade wasreplaced by agriculture , especially during the 18th and 19th centuries;the efforts of some of the Uzbek begs to revive such importantmediaeval centres such as Samarkand and Balkh through forcibletransfer of population from countryside to the cities only led tounrest. The region was increasingly being divided between the localsmall land-owning nobility who were independen t of each other andtied to the recently established centres of European trade in India andSiberia.

The restoration of the former culture and the economic importance

of Turkestan in C entral A sia, its participation in the new cultural andeconomic order of the world could only be assured through the

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96 Zeki Velidi Togan

introduction of a modern European land transportation system(railways), the acquiring of European technology and a modernsocio-economic system, all of which would probably have meant, inthose days, close cooperation with one of the E uropean states. In thestruggle to conquer the markets of Central Asia, France and Portugalwere forced to give in to the English who also found themselvesunable to cross the Hindukush. As a consequence of this, and thefailure of Anglo-Indian diplomacy in Afghanistan and Bukhara(1841-1842), instead of establishing contacts with a European state inthe south, Turkestan was overrun from the north by a semi-Asiaticnation: the Russians. Naturally, the self-proclaimed cultural missionof these invaders could not last long, and it ended to all intents andpurposes at the beginning of the 20th century, after the building of theTranscaspian railway and the opening of the Orenburg-Tashkentrailway (10 June 1905). From this period on , the Russians ceased tobe the European masters of the colony and decided to settle therethrough their rather mobile (one could even say semi-nomadic)mujiks, hoping that shortly they would become the majority in asubjugated land. In order to house the settlers, hundreds ofthousands of whom had first gone to the Kirghiz and Bashkir steppesand then to Turkestan, the established and semi-nomadic natives ofthe arable steppe regions were expelled into the deserts, while theirrigation canals of the natives of M averannakhar were confiscated —canals which they themselves had built and maintained for thousandsof years. With the arrrival of the Russian settle rs, unfamiliar with theintensive agriculture, the Kirghiz irrigation systems of the O renbu rg -Turgay and Irtysh regions disappeared. In southern Turkestan therewas a large scale confiscation of land for the so-called "easy" non-irrigational agriculture. As a result, with the partial d isappearance ofthe irrigation systems, the population was condemned to hunger.Even the General Governorship itself, on 22 January 1906, wasforced to admit that "poverty and landlessness are increasing amongthe native population. Under the khans the agrarian crises weresolved through the construction of new irrigational systems, while weRussians, ever since the occupation of Ferghana, are only paralysingthe existing systems, not building anything new, and that caused themutiny of the Mintubin Ishan."1

After the opening of the Orenburg-Tashken t railway, the Russiansintroduced all possible measures to ensure the transfer of the richesof the land into Russian hands. They prevented the growth of tradecapital which began to emerge among the native traders after theconstruction of the railways. By not teaching natives military ar ts, so

propagating cowardice and a slave mentality among them, andthrough limiting their education they restricted the natives access to

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Problems of Turkestan 97

Europe, thus sustaining archaic, clannish and feudal prejudicesamong the Turkestanis, which led to inter-clan strife, allowing theRussians to assume the role of the "outside conciliatory jud ge". The

name of the land — Turkestan — was abolished because it might haveserved as a rallying point for the natives. In supporting clan dialects— Uzbek, Karakalpak, Khivan, Kara-Kirghiz, Turkoman, Kirghiz,Taranchi, Uighur, etc. — and pretending that these dialects werebeing used in all spheres of life of the artificially created regional uezdand even volost units, they paralysed the centuries old, and stilldeveloping, literary language — Chagatay — and the development ofthe Turkestan culture, and in this way fostered Russian culture and

language. As the natives had been forbidden to initiate newirrigational projects, the Russians ensured that the abandoned landcould only be regenerated by their settlement there. Throughforbidding the immigration in this region of other Turkestanipeoples, they attempted to limit the increase of the nativepopulation. By enslaving the native population through the forcibleintroduction of cotton and by consistent debt relief for Russiancapitalists (now Soviet banks) they attem pted to prevent any possible

involvement of the natives in political developments.The Turkestanis, realising that in the near future they would be

economically crushed and culturally assimilated by the Russiansettlers and the Russian yoke, rebelled during the World War andafter the Russian Revolution. Only in 1922 did Russia, havingsecured her position on other fronts, succeed in crushing the nationalliberation movement of Turkestan and, having appropriated alllevers of control in both the economy and culture, began to pursueher pre-war policy with even g reater vigour.

The Bolsheviks, claiming to struggle against the colonial policy andthe "colonisers", in fact not only continued the policy of the Tsaristregime but even surpassed the Tsar. Under the Tsarist regime, eventhough the nomadic population was decreasing due to disease andpermanent hunger, the urban population and the part of the ruralpopulation unaffected by Russian landgrabbing were actuallyincreasing. In some agricultural areas of Maveranakhar, where thenative population had lived in peace for 50 years, the populationincrease was fairly substantial. The policy of the transformation ofland cultivating w heat and rice to cotton planta tions, and the gradualelimination of irrigation systems, even under the Tsarist regime, putthe native population under threat of famine and dependent on breadfrom Russia. This horrifying type of death appeared during theRevolution, under the Bolsheviks in 1918, when, thanks to the so-called "planned distribution" policy of the Moscow Communists andtheir unmerciful attitude to the native peasants, no bread arrived

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from Russia which resulted in the death of two million natives in thefive Uzbek regions alone. During the famine of 1921-1922, in thewestern part of Kirghizia (now Kazakhstan) more than 500,000

people died. During 50 years of the Transit regime, there w ere only250,000 Russian settlers in the U zbek regions, while the Bolsheviksmanaged to settle 201,000 Russians in the vicinity in just three years(1919-1921) (according to the agricultural census of the TurkestanKray of 1920). Even though such an unbelievable influx of settlers inTurkestan was caused mainly by famine in Russia, a large part wasplayed by the specific Bolshevik methods of settlement. While, onthe one hand, in the northern part of Turkestan they pretended to

return to the Kirghiz parts of their confiscated land , on the other theysent tens of thousands of Russian city dwellers and unem ployed fromcentral Russia there on the pretext of "proletarisation of theindustrially backward Turkestan", presenting this as a duty.Moreover, Turkestan became a place where the government exiledmalcontents who could be used on the peripheries of the country.Even though some of these settlers received land in the old settlercommunities (and still do) most of them stayed in the cities, thus

worsening the housing crisis. Like the A rabs w ho, having conqueredTurkestan 1200 years ago, housed the Arab and Persian settlers byexpropriating one half of a native's house, the Russian Bolshevikshoused their settlers using the same m ethod . By this means they alsoachieved a certain degree of supervision over the political activities ofthe natives whose homes, until that time, had been closed tooutsiders. The same supervision is achieved under the slogan "closerto the masses", according to which Soviet offices are moved from

Russian to native towns.The Tsarist government attempted to prevent the emergence of

independent native capital, but conditions were favourable for theaccumulation of certain wealth by some of the native traders whoplayed the role of middlemen to the European-Russian financialcapital. Consequently, at least a part of the wealth of Turkestanremained in the hands of representatives of the native traders.

However, the Bolsheviks eliminated this too and introduced Moscowcooperatives which controlled the entire trade with the nativepopulation. All factories, department stores and trading companieswere in the hands of Moscow, all profit diverted there. The watersystems and the land that the Tsarist government tried to controlthrough the D um a were also now wholly in the hands of the Russianswho could give or refuse water to whoever they p leased.

The policy of the forcible introduction of cotton, which the Tsarist

government endeavoured to achieve by applying pressure on thenatives through the banks and by demonstrating the economic profit

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of growing cotton, now became the main component of Bolshevikpolicy in Turkestan. In order to achieve this, military force was used.The Turkestanis now had very small areas in which to grow wheat and

rice. M ost of the land was reserved for cotton growing. As a result ofallocating most of the land for cotton growing, there was a shortageof bread which had to be compensated for by import from Russia. Inother words, as far as daily bread was concerned, Turkestan was aslave of Russia.

If Russia was unable to supply bread, or the country was again tobe engulfed by war as in 1918, or if the railway service wasinterrup ted , then millions of poor Turkestanis would starve to death .If that day was to come again, Turkestan would have no escape fromthis calamity, since the distribution of water was in the hands of theRussians and they would not provide water for grain production."Either you grow cotton, or the water will be released into thedesert", was their directive. Meanwhile, Moscow was unable toprovide enough bread in return for the cotton. For example,according to reports, the planned amount of bread that the RussianBolshevik government was supposed to send to Turkestanrepresented no more than paper figures. The abolition of localprivate trade obliterated the artisan industry and even the nativecloth industry which was developed during the years of war andrevolution. In other words, a Turkestani working in the cotton fieldscould no longer m ake his own clothes and could only be clothed afterhis cotton returned from the Moscow processing factories.

National culture was in an even more difficult position. U nder theTsars there was a small native publishing industry, existing because ofnative capital. This capital was removed and a governm ent publishinghouse set up, receiving its money, paper and print from Moscow,publishing only what was written for Moscow and on Moscow'sorders.

The settlement in Turkestan of Turkic peoples related to theTurkestanis, strictly forbidden under the Tsarist regime, wasforbidden informally as all matters concerning settlements were inthe hands of the R ussians. In order to destroy a united Turkic nationin Turkestan, and in Russia itself, the government created small,tribal republics and used all available means to stir up conflictsbetween different Turkic tribes. The presence, in any mannerwhatsoever, of the representative of one tribe on the territory ofanother was described as "the policy of enslavement andimperialism". As a result of this, a great number of Kirghiz andTatars who had lived in the Tashkent area for a long time were forcedto leave. To pu t it simply, the situation in Turkestan after the RussianRevolution was a thousand times worse than before and was

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unspeakable and ominous. If this policy of economic and culturalrussification of Turkestan persisted for another quarter of a century,the future of the country would be very bleak indeed. There was astream of Russian settlers arriving in Turkestan, Turkic culture wasdisappearing, being consumed by Russian culture as if by cholera.

What could be done to stop this? The question was on the m inds ofall Turkestanis, even the Turkestani youth who acceptedCommunism and fervently worked for its cause, especially during1919-1923. Such native Communists as Rahim Ingamov and hiscomrades, who diligently and sincerely worked for Russians, werecalled "the biggest leftists". They were then accused by the CentralCommittee of RKP of being "nationalist and counter-revolutionary"and were "excom municated". The solution to all these problems wasthe dream of all Turkestanis. The most difficult aspects of the"sickness" of Turkestan were the economic enslavement and thepolicy of settlement. The only radical solution would be to buildrailways connecting Turkestan with the arable lands of Ind ia, Chinaand Persia in order to import grain and other foodstuffs freely. The600 verst railway, connecting the station K ushka, in south Turkestanwith the last stop of the Indian Railway at Keuchemeng, goingthrough Herat and Kandahar, or building the West Asian railwayKushk a-M ashh ad-T ehran , could offer Turkestan a way of avoidingthe dangers of famine and economic enslavement. If the railwaybeing built by the Chinese in eastern Turkestan were to extend toJungaria and connect with the Semireche line, then T urkestan couldreturn to its former position in world markets. But the Russians weredead against connecting Turkestan by rail with other countries, justas they were against building roads for export of local produce andimport of grain from other countries. The Russians would only returnTurkestan to its former position as an important centre of world tradewhen their numerical superiority in the country was guaranteed andall local dangers of "separatism" were eliminated.

Therefore , the only way to liberate Turkestan from this economic,cultural and social slavery and to guarantee progress and

development for the future of Turkestan on the basis of its naturalrights lay in political independence.For Turkestan, independence is the beginning and the basis of

everything. Without independence no modern technology could belearned from abroad — the Russians would not allow technology toreach Turkestan. In order to settle the millions of Turkestani nomadsand ensure their transition to a more developed way of life it wouldbe necessary to build new irrigation canals. Settling the nomads

would only be possible if new lands were opened up by using thewaters of the Rivers Syr Darya, Amu Darya and Hi, that were at the

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time flowing uselessly into the A ral and Balkhash lakes, and watersof other rivers that were disappearing into the desert. To do this itwould be necessary to build dams and water reservoirs, such as the

Aswan in Egypt, or the Indian dams. Since the building of these damswould be at points far removed from the mountains and quarries,railways would have to be built for transporting the necessarymaterials. The building of canals, railways and roads would costmillions. An independent Turkestan would be able to attract thenecessary capital from the civilised countries — something theRussians would be unable to do since firstly they had no capital, andsecondly even were they able to find the money they would only begin

to build them if they were sure they could settle Russian peasants onthe newly available land.

Meanwhile, central Russia had so much land it might have servedas an impediment to the resettlement of large numbers of Russians,especially considering the fact that they were unused to irrigationalagriculture. An example of this could be found in Mirza K ul, wherethe Tsarist government, having sent a sufficient number of settlersthere, began to dig canals. Being unfamiliar with Turkestan and itsclimate, the Russian engineers began the job in salinated ground and,naturally, the desirable result was not achieved. The Russian

.governm ent would not dig canals for the natives to use the land or forthe nomads to settle th ere. Even the canals dug in the mid-1920s bythe local population in the regions of Khojent and Tashkent werecalled "international" by the Russian government and were given tothe Russians and Armenians.

Consequently, rather than stating that before Turkestan could beindependent it had to achieve economic renaissance, it should havebeen said in order to achieve economic renaissance, Turkestanneeded political independence.

NOTE

1. Turkestanskie Vedomosti, 1906, No . 13.

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